ENTERING THE COMFORT ZONE

New eateries emphasizing down-home favorites, but with a contemporary twist

“My friends and I were all foodies, but as they all started having kids, they couldn’t go to all those foodie spots anymore,” said Simms, who funded the restaurant development with help from friends and family investors. “So we developed Lazy Dog as a place with a relaxed vibe to it, and we layered it with all these craveable classics, from pot roast to chicken pot pie, great hamburgers. Then we have this great layer of more innovative cuisine like you’d see at the foodie places, pulling cool ideas from food trucks and the fine dining places.”

The 8,000-square-foot San Diego restaurant, designed with liberal amounts of stone and wood accents, will seat 250 inside and an additional 50 outdoors. While there are no immediate plans to add more San Diego restaurants (Concord in the Bay Area is its next opening, this fall), Simms says he would be interested in a North County location.

Cost to develop: $250,000. Before deciding on her East Village location, Terryl Gavre took frequent walks through downtown and surrounding neighborhoods with partner Paul Basile, her designer, scouting buildings they thought could be adapted for a restaurant.

‘We’d take pictures, write letters to the landlords, and then this darling little brick building became available, and I love corners,” said Terryl Gavre, who owns Cafe 222, a popular downtown breakfast spot, and is a partner with Chef Carl Schroeder at Bankers Hill Restaurant and Bar. “We took over three spaces. One was just a 15-seat counter serving Chinese and American food, next door was an optometrist, and the last 400 square feet was a shoe repair.”

Her quest to focus on classic Southern-style cuisine led her to a number of Junior League cookbooks from Southern cities, which she perused for recipes she could test before crafting her final menu.

“I tried 15 recipes for angel biscuits, 10 for pecan custard,” she said. “I, of course have modernized the ingredients, but they’re pretty darn authentic recipes. I’m sure I’ve gained 5 or 10 pounds trying these recipes. They’re not the kind of food you should eat every day.”

Initially, her new restaurant will focus on lunch and dinner, as well as takeout that she hopes will be convenient for baseball fans heading to nearby Petco Park. Brunch may come later, said Gavre, who’s also busy getting ready to open a Bankers Hill outlet at Lindbergh Field.

At just 1,200 square feet, Acme will be able to seat 40 inside and 40 outside.

Like Gavre, co-owners P.J. Lamont and Matt Baker had an itch to expand after opening Bare Back Grill in Pacific Beach and, more recently, Raglan Public House in Ocean Beach. When their scouting forays took them to an early 1900s house in Little Italy with a for-rent sign posted, they were hooked.